Two contradictory signals are travelling through the Bharatiya Janata Party’s cadre in Punjab.On one end is BL Santosh, the party’s national general secretary (organisation), who spent two days travelling across Punjab for zonal meetings in Patiala, Bathinda, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar, with a blunt message for the cadre: forget the Akalis.“The BJP will contest all 117 Assembly seats in Punjab,” Santosh told party workers at the first zonal meeting in Patiala, adding that the party would go on to form the next government on its own.Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon had also ruled out alliance speculation, saying the party was fully prepared to contest all 117 seats by itself.Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu and working president Ashwani Sharma have taken the same line at different points this year, with Bittu asking pointedly, “What face will we show to the people if we today compromise with them,” referring to the Shiromani Akali Dal.On the other end sits a very different conversation, and it comes from the very top of the party’s own organisation.In June, BJP national president Nitin Nabin said in Jalandhar, “Today we are neither in favour of the alliance nor against it.” Nabin said the party wanted first to “move forward on our own strength” while “certain things will be clear with time”.Asked when a call would be taken, he said the party would “make an assessment” closer to the election and “take the call after six months”. Earlier, he had said that “in politics, the door to an alliance is never shut.”Punjab BJP core committee member RP Singh added to the confusion when he called on SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, who has been recuperating in Delhi after the Nanded attack, and said any tie-up would need the Akali Dal to stay “positive, flexible and not rigid”.Sukhbir Badal’s own meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month had already set off the current round of speculation.Former Punjab BJP chief Jattvibeil Jakhar had, separately, told The Tribune that an alliance with the SAD was “the need of the hour”.Amit Shah’s silence adds to speculationUnion Home Minister Amit Shah, notably, has said nothing through any of this.It was Shah who, at a rally in Moga in March, first ruled out any tie-up with the Akalis for the BJP this cycle — a position the party has repeated through Dhillon, Sharma, Bittu and Santosh ever since.But since Sukhbir Badal’s meeting with PM Modi, and through Harsimrat’s and Majithia’s public overtures and RP Singh’s visit to Sukhbir’s Delhi residence, Shah has made no public comment either reaffirming his Moga position or responding to the renewed alliance talk.His silence is being read in Punjab BJP circles as pointedly as anything that has actually been said.The Akalis are not hiding their optimismWhile the BJP’s Punjab unit insists there is no confusion, Shiromani Akali Dal leaders have made little effort to dampen alliance talk.Addressing a party gathering in Sangrur on the death anniversary of Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, Harsimrat Kaur Badal confirmed something was brewing.“It is not my duty to speak, so I am holding back my tongue,” the Bathinda MP told the gathering, before referring to “agreements” that could once again bring development from Delhi to Punjab.Her brother, SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia, went a step further two days later, saying the ground was ripe in Punjab for the two parties to reunite.“There is a demand from the people that we should come together again,” Majithia said, citing law and order, border security, development and employment as the drivers of that sentiment, while adding that the final call would rest with the two parties’ senior leadership.Neither Harsimrat nor Majithia has announced a formal pact.The BJP’s official framing of Santosh’s visit was that grassroots feedback had “largely favoured fighting the 2027 elections without an alliance”, with most participants at the zonal meetings said to favour the BJP building its own base rather than reviving ties with the SAD.Santosh, in turn, asked workers to prepare for all 117 constituencies and pushed for a stronger booth-level network, including panna pramukhs and greater field visits by leaders — organisational instructions that assume, for now, a solo contest.Santosh’s tour itself was billed as an effort to “pacify miffed leaders” after a recent reshuffle of office-bearers left a section of the old guard, including Hoshiarpur veteran Tikshan Sud, publicly dissatisfied.Sud and his supporters had earlier resigned en masse from organisational posts, calling the removal of a close aide “unjustified”.Another senior leader, Subash Sharma, is also upset with the state party leadership for not consulting him on appointments made in his parliamentary constituency, Anandpur Sahib.A BJP leader, wishing anonymity, said, “How can a booth worker put in all the time and resources in strengthening the party when he doesn’t know if an Akali candidate or a BJP candidate would contest from that seat?”Another party leader said the Punjab BJP risks turning into what one source called “an extended Badal family”, as it appears to be joining hands with the very party led by the Badal family that it broke ties with.